The Department of Health and Social Care has only recently released their Data Saves Lives policy draft. The draft strategy sets out ambitious plans to harness the potential of data in health and care while maintaining the highest standards of privacy and ethics.

The strategy sets out the Secretary of State’s vision for how data will be used to improve the health and care of the population in a safe, trusted, and transparent way. It provides an overarching narrative and action plan to address the current cultural, behavioural, and structural barriers in the system with the ultimate goal of having a health and care system that is underpinned by high-quality, readily available data. It marks the next steps of the discussion about how we can best utilise data for the benefit of patients, service users, and the health and social care system.

The strategy is published in draft form to enable full and open engagement on the commitments made within it, before publishing a final version of the strategy later in 2021.

It is important for everyone in adult social care to respond to this draft, provide feedback and ensure a balanced viewpoint. We hope that you are able to respond to this draft before it closes on 23rd July 2021.

In the recent ‘Impact of the White Paper – Care Talk Conference’, Vic Raynor, CEO of the National Care Forum, talked about data being ‘the driver for change’.

Vic’s key points in the conference around data were:

• Real-time data around care
• Different data philosophies must be respected
• Getting the data set right and the conditions for sharing
• Shared view of why it matters
• Data strategy – co-created with care providers and people who use care and support

She talked about how data is largely gathered by a capacity tracking system and a lot of work is still yet to be done around standardisation of data. It is said that all social care organisations should be using electronic planning systems by 2024 and there is also a data security and protection tool kit that will be used as a guide to organisations on what will be expected.

Click here to read the full draft of the Data Saves Lives policy draft. 

Click here to provide your feedback and have your say!

If you would like to discuss the above, or about how we can collaborate, please let us know. To get in touch, please email [email protected] or call us on 03305 552233!

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